James Dolan’s tenure as the owner of the New York Knicks hasn’t exactly been rife with success, so when rumblings have popped up in the last few years about Dolan selling the squad, Knicks fans got rather excited. There’s just one problem: Dolan has made it clear he has no intention of selling the team.
This was reinforced on Tuesday afternoon during an appearance on Michael Kay’s radio show. Dolan was asked about the most recent rumors of a potential sale and bluntly refuted them.
Knicks owner James Dolan, on ESPN Radio: "Just for the record: I am not selling the team and I am not quitting."
— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) March 12, 2019
Again, this has pretty consistently been Dolan’s response when this has popped up recently, so it stands to reason that he’s telling the truth and the 63-year-old plans on sticking around for a while. So where, in his estimation, do these rumblings come from? In his eyes, the source of the most recent rumors — Bill Simmons — heard something from someone who has a vested interest in the Knicks not getting big name free agents.
James Dolan on @BillSimmons saying he's considering selling Knicks:
"There are teams that do not want us to get free agents. Some in particular. He’s very close friends with the GM of one team. What they’re doing is they’re trying to destabilize because they know we’re favored." pic.twitter.com/GbaThmnwx3— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) March 12, 2019
Obviously Dolan was careful to pick his words with this one, but that surely does read like he’s accusing Danny Ainge of feeding information to Simmons, who responded to this on Twitter after the quote started making rounds. Again, it cannot be stressed enough that this is nothing more than what Dolan thinks is going on and there nothing concrete about these allegations.
Dolan does, however, think that sticking around will be rewarded by a big offseason. New York is expected to be aggressive in the free agency market once July 1 rolls around, and according to the Knicks owner, the team has reason to believe their interest in free agents is reciprocated by the players and their representatives.
Dolan drops some major optimism: "We hear from people all the time players, representatives who want to come. We can't respond because of NBA rules. That doesn't stop them from telling us. From what we've heard we're going to have a very successful offseason for free agents."
— Marc Berman (@NYPost_Berman) March 12, 2019
The Knicks fan James Dolan kicked out from MSG this weekend has been banned from the arena, Dolan says. He says he intended to bring him back and schmooze him but now says he thinks the fan made a pre-meditated confrontation with him so he's now banned. Dolan says he was ambushed
— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) March 12, 2019
New York has been connected to seemingly every free agent this summer, and of course, Dolan didn’t give any indication as to which players are on his radar. What is clear, at least according to Dolan, is that he’ll be around as the Knicks try to work their way back to relevancy for the foreseeable future.
